


Every Chance We'll Have

by magicasen



Category: Marvel Ultimates
Genre: Cancer, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Getting Together, Hospitals, M/M, Secret Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 06:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicasen/pseuds/magicasen
Summary: A mission gone south leaves a city block decimated and Iron Man hospitalized, but what makes top headlines is the fact that Captain America has a secret lover.To the man himself, it's a living nightmare. His husband is in a coma, his entire world is falling apart around him, and Steve has to to confront realities he never wanted to.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SirSapling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirSapling/gifts).



> This was written for the 2018 Cap/IM RBB. I was paired with SirSapling who has been the GREATEST partner ever. It was so much fun working with you and sharing in the Ults love! Please look at his wonderful, angsty art [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889705)! 
> 
> Thank you so much to FestiveFerret, enkiduu, and Imperium for the beta! 
> 
> Heed the tags about cancer, as Tony's cancer does play a big role in this fic.

**Now:**

The first person Steve revealed his secret to was a stranger. He didn’t think the nurse on night shift deserved to know, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He’d brought proof, too, to counter any skepticism, because he didn’t make plans that failed.

In the hospital bed, Tony didn’t look much better than he had before his three surgeries. His heart rate was weak, and his breathing was shallow. If there was a change in either, Steve would be the first to know.

He wasn’t as sentimental to believe that his presence would hasten Tony’s recovery. But being next to Tony made something in him, flighty and panicked, settle. Steve had gotten through the fight with a few cuts and bruises that didn’t even warrant a field medic, but coming here was worth it just for the worry to subside.

_If it makes you feel good, then fuck what the others think. Why not?_

There was Tony, rubbing off on him. He could imagine the wolfish grin and sly remark Tony would send his way if he knew. Once, Steve would have taken it as an offense and quickly turned it back into contempt. Now, the thought of it was like a clamp over his heart. It’d been a long time since Steve felt pain that wasn’t dulled.

It wasn’t like Tony didn’t already know how he’d changed Steve.

What would make him feel better, Steve decided as he pulled up a chair, was for Tony to open his eyes already.

* * *

**Then:**

 

No one was there to greet Steve at the entrance to the penthouse. Not that he minded; it gave him more time to swallow his pride.

He hefted his light bag on his shoulder. If Tony hadn’t noticed him, then his butler would be by soon. It took him a minute to remember Jarvis was one of last week’s casualties. He winced and tried to come up with a memory of the man other than him dryly remarking on Tony’s indecorous mannerisms, plethora of vices, and poor taste.

Miss Potts had informed him Tony was home. Maybe Tony forgot he was alone now, and thus, responsibility for greeting his visitors fell to him. Maybe Tony flooded his head with booze and had forgotten most things.

Steve understood if he wanted to forget. He went through a breakup, and it’d still taken nearly a week of cheap, run-down motels and worse food for Steve to work up the courage to come here. Even Tony Stark had to be shaken by attempted murder at the hands of his fiancée.

The poor bastard, and oh, Tony would be actually ruffled at Steve for even thinking that.

That was too far a thought. Really, the man was trying to drink his misery away, and here Steve stood, contemplating the idea of his unhappiness. It seemed, sometimes, that the only emotion Tony didn't fake was his anger. Steve didn't understand him. From the way that Tony had explained his cancer and impending death, with a light air and a lighter, daring smile, he didn’t want to understand him.

Besides, Tony would probably find Steve’s conflicting thoughts about him amusing, wouldn’t he? Steve rubbed his temples. This had been his past week, fantasy-scenarios and conversations played out, with Jan and Thor and Tony and Hank and everything else that’d went wrong. Before, he’d done the same with the plane and Bucky and Gail and every single way that fateful mission in Iceland could have gone.

Whatever they thought of each other, the fact remained that Steve had few places, if any, to escape his own mind but here. There weren't many who were allowed into the top floor of Stark Tower without prior appointment, and enigmatic as Tony was, their bond had been forged into something that resembled trust.

“Stark?” Every room he peeked into was empty and untouched, thin films of dust covering side tables and kitchen counters. In his previous visits, he hadn’t ventured further than the living room, dining room, and kitchen. After a moment’s hesitation, headed to Tony’s bedroom.

The door to the room was shut. Steve readied himself, fist raised to knock, and heard a noise. The muffled sound came again, putting Steve on edge. His hands went to his belt as he crouched down, keen for any sign of struggle as he double-checked for the gun strapped to his back.

There was a slight banging, like someone tapping on glass, as Steve nudged the unlocked door open silently. There weren’t any signs of struggle. It was soon clear that the sound came from the bathroom, and the sound of retching followed. That door wasn’t closed, a slab of light cutting across the carpet floor, and Steve crept around to peer inside.

“Stark!” Steve was next to Tony in an instant, dropping to his knees. Tony met his eyes, but his gaze wasn’t focused. His mouth was slightly ajar, and at its corner something wet that Steve didn’t want to think too closely on. He was dressed in an open bathrobe, and the ends of the belt trailed along the floor. There were deep bags under his eyes, and he was pale, so much so that Steve wanted to bring his own hand up to his cheek, just to check the difference in their skin coloration.

In short, he looked like shit. Tony’s expression shifted to surprise, then to anger, then embarrassment, before settling on amusement.

“Darling.” Tony grinned at him. “You’re early. I thought I scheduled for the escort service to arrive here at dinner.”

Steve suspected he said it to scare him off, and it might have worked, once. Now, seeing how far Tony would go to keep up appearances, it just exhausted him.

“Like anyone needs you to pay them to come here,” Steve said. Tony laughed, before he shuddered and scrambled for the toilet bowl. By this point, there was nothing but stomach acid. Tony tried a few times for the toilet handle to flush, and he leaned his forehead against the porcelain, panting. Steve reached out, pressing his fingers to the back of Tony’s neck. He was cold and clammy, and shook his head weakly at Steve's touch.

Once his breathing had slowed down, Tony sat back with a groan.

“Well, the vomiting and constant complaining of migraines isn’t very attractive to most people. But I would never have imagined it’d do something for Captain America.” Tony blinked slowly at him, and his long, curled eyelashes, like a dame's, framed his sharp, blue eyes. It was a striking contrast, and Steve was reminded of the first time he’d seen a color photograph of Clark Gable, and how it’d been entrancing, how different he could look from the black-and-white films.

Tony rolled his shoulders, raising his face to the ceiling, and, right, Steve had a sick man on his watch.

“Are you finished?”

Tony sighed. “I think so. I’m imagining a lovely, vintage red wine, and my mind isn’t revolting at the idea, so I think that spell’s over.”

“Good,” Steve said, grabbing a glass from beside the sink and filling it with water.

“Tap? Really?” Tony said when Steve offered it to him.

Steve took a sip and shrugged. “It tastes fine.”

Tony stared at him, and when Steve brought the glass up to Tony’s lips, he swatted his hand away, making a grab for it.

“I’m not an invalid, give me that,” he muttered, downing it fast enough Steve feared it would all come right back up. For a moment, it appeared that Tony had the same thought, making an ugly, wholly un-Tony-Stark expression at the glass, before holding it out to Steve. Steve took it and refilled it, although this time he kept a careful watch on how fast Tony drank it. Tony swirled it around in his mouth, before turning and spitting it into the toilet.

“Ugh, that’s foul.” Tony sighed, putting a hand to the floor and attempting to stand. Steve was there in an instant, lifting him up from beneath his shoulder. Tony swayed a bit, and feeling his slightly feverish skin press against his own, Steve was suddenly aware that Tony was wearing nothing more than a robe and his underwear.

Steve helped him to his bed, taking a seat on the edge. Tony laid himself out spread-eagle on it, eyes closed, and his robe was just a formality at this point for keeping him covered. “Oh, that’s wonderful.”

Tony had a trail of dark hair, starting from below his belly button, that thickened the further down it went.

“Thanks, Cap. You really saved me there.” At the call of his name, Steve snapped his eyes up. He wondered if Tony was mocking him, but it wasn’t him who should be embarrassed. It was Tony, wasn’t it, caught vomiting and in a rat hole in his penthouse worth millions.

“It’s nothing,” Steve said. “How long were you in there for?”

“You mean today? Or how long that’s been my morning routine?” Tony chuckled, and Steve felt like scowling. Who would drink enough to bring themselves to that every morning?

Tony rolled over, grabbing his phone from his bedside table. “Oh, so dear Pepper  _did_ send me a text about you coming up. I might have been too busy with my sojourn with the porcelain queen over there.” Tony made a vague gesture with his hand. “So? What brings you here,  _mon capitan_ ?”

With all of Tony’s attention trained on him, curiosity sparked, like he hadn’t just vomited up half his insides two minutes ago. Steve cleared his throat, heat creeping up the back of his neck. If Steve tried to play it off, would Tony call him out on his bullshit? Jan always had.

“It's about the Ultimates.”

“What, do you not like the name? I suppose it’s a touch too Power Rangers for my taste.”

“I figured that—we never really worked out the details of how the Ultimates were going to operate. After we broke with SHIELD.”

Tony hummed, and Steve knew that he hadn’t fooled him. He’d never been a good liar, and that was why, though SHIELD had thrown around the idea at the beginning of Captain America being a covert ops masquerading with a secret identity, they’d swiftly shelved the idea.

“Well,” Tony said, eyes going from Steve’s face to his hands, where his fingers were twisting around each other. Steve placed them flat on his knees.

“You don’t need to worry about that, Cap, you have enough on your mind.”

“There’s not much that's more important than the team, Stark.”

Tony shot him a toothy grin that didn’t feel at all like a smile. “I’m glad you think so too, Rogers. And while you’d be the go-to guy if we were building a strike team to take down the alien overlords, there're still things outside of our skillset. My people and Fury’s people, of which there is a significant overlap, have been talking. I agree entirely that we needed to be free of SHIELD and the hot water that’s international politics, but as you can imagine, it’s very hard to get out of the pockets of a trillion dollar operation.” He winked. “Not to say I don't have experience with it.”

“You’re already working on it.” Steve hunched his shoulders, and the sudden shame was a bitter pill to swallow. Of course, he’d been blinded by the glitz and glamour of Tony’s life, the women and parties and flying suits of armor, though the last one was uniquely Tony Stark. Tony was very good at distracting you from his reality of being a shrewd businessman underneath it all, or maybe Steve was good at not wanting to know.

Meanwhile, Steve had been happy to hide away and “collect his thoughts and plan his short-term, achievable goals to address them” or whatever the shrink had told him. He’d even tried going through a carton of ice cream, and even if it couldn’t make him physically ill, it sure did a hell of a job of making him feel just as awful. Steve supposed that if they weren’t part of SHIELD anymore, he wasn’t required to have people tell him what his own thoughts meant and how he had to act on them anymore.

Tony put his hands behind his head, blinking up at the ceiling. “I figured we need a bit of a cooling off period after a guy loses his family, a wife gets nearly beaten to death, and the romantic gets his heart broken. Negotiations with the government are such a slog, and military is even worse. Really now, no need for any of you to concern yourself with it.”

Tony’s voice was deceptively breezy, like they were discussing the weather. Hadn’t he nearly been murdered himself, by his fiancée?

Steve had assumed Tony would be the easiest to talk to. Battle brought people together in a way that not many could understand. Commiserating in shared misery seemed like the next logical step. Steve recalled the rumor mill hard at work, about how Tony had found himself a new paramour. Maybe that’s how it was in the future Tony personified. Intense, all-consuming, like an explosion, and gone just as quickly.

“After all we’ve been through, you want to do everything yourself?”

The bed shifted when Tony rolled over onto his side. “I should have known that I’d piss you off either way,” he said, oddly petulant rather than joking, and an unexpected rush of fondness caught Steve off guard.

“I’m not pissed,” Steve told him, and Tony snorted. Okay, maybe he was a little. But not in the way Tony had taken it. “You said, once, that your home was open to any of the Ultimates.”

Tony nodded, grabbing for his pillow. “You start sounding like an ass when you have several empty mansions and apartments collecting dust, and your friends insist on shitholes in Brooklyn, or are convinced that the ownership of land and property is the work of dirty, corrupt capitalists cannibalizing the Earth.”

Steve knew Tony didn’t care whether he sounded like an ass or not.

“I haven’t been in that shithole for a while. I’ve been living with Jan,” Steve said and swallowed down his guilt at living in sin. Even if Tony was the last person who would ever judge him for it. “But we…aren’t together anymore.”

Tony whistled low. “A pity. You two made for a gorgeous couple. Your children would have been beautiful.” His eyes were bright where he looked up at Steve. “Want to drink your sorrows away?”

Steve shrugged. A small part of him had always known that there was no way he and Jan could have ended up the way he wanted to. They were too different, even if he agreed with all Tony said. Love really wasn’t enough, or maybe it was that Jan hadn’t loved him enough, not when her heart belonged to Hank. Steve would never understand; the times he'd argued with Jan had been painful enough to deal with, although he would have weathered them for her. Hitting her, though, was so entirely foreign, and only what a weak, pitiful, cowardly person would stoop to.

“Haven’t you had enough to drink already?”

Tony sniffed. “I’ll have you know, I ran out of everything, including the crap, two days ago and was too busy vegetating in old underwear to get more.”

“That’s…oh.” Steve realized with a start that he hadn't smelled any alcohol on Tony’s breath, not even when he’d half-carried him here. It wasn't alcohol that'd made Tony sick this morning. Something in the pit of his gut curdled.

“So, is Captain America homeless, now?” Tony studied Steve’s face. “She didn’t throw your things out into the street, did she? She can be petty, but I would have pegged her as too proud for histrionics. It’d explain why you look like what the cat threw up, though.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Tony laughed. “There’s a mansion, over on Fifth Avenue. I was going to give it up for Ultimates use. You’d like it. Right across the street from Central Park, great place for runs or dates with your rebounds. Rooftop pool. Not much of a training gym there, but that can be arranged. It’s much more your idea of a rich person than the guy living a thousand feet above the rest of New York.”

A mansion, like those radio dramas Steve used to be obsessed with. “What about you?” he asked. “You moving in too?”

“That’s my childhood home, there. Oh, the countless memories of Greg and dear old Dad. Mm, there’s a reason I beat it the moment I could.”

“You’d rather live alone, then?”

Tony shrugged. “With how big my places are, being alone or not doesn’t make a big difference.”

“You don’t even have any doorbells.”

Tony raised an eyebrow, like he knew exactly when saying nothing made for the best effect. The feeling of shame was creeping back up Steve's neck, and Steve didn’t understand why he cared so much about something so small. It wasn’t like he’d exactly been clamoring for Tony’s attention or company before now.

“Doorbells? Darling, if you haven’t noticed, the front door is ninety stories down. Anyone who needs to knock isn’t getting in.”

“Still.” Steve cleared his throat, every bit of exposed skin burning up.

“I’ll ask Pepper to see if she can get into contact with any butlers-slash-bodyguards-slash-personal-secretaries. I kept Jarvis on because he was there since I was a little brat, but I always wanted someone who could put me into a headlock without having a heart attack.” Tony’s smile was strained.

“I…Yeah. That would be a good idea. But—” Steve’s face was growing hot, and he didn’t know how many excuses he could come up with. He fought off aliens and international terrorists, and here he was, cowed by Tony Stark. It had been a stupid idea in the first place, and what type of strategist was he to think it could have worked? Just because characters on television could live on the same floor in the same apartment building and see each other everyday. What had he been thinking—he’d hated bunking with others back in the war. Tony would laugh at him. Tony should laugh at him. “You’d still walk all over them.”

“It's not their fault. Look at me. I have Captain America coming to my doorstep and cleaning up my shit.”

“I’m not your butler.”

Tony’s eyes softened. “Of course not. You’re just privileged enough for me to not kick you out for trying. You’re a good teammate, though.”

“Friend,” Steve amended. His heart picked up, and he tested the word again silently, liking the way it felt. “I wouldn’t do this for Scarlet Witch or Quicksilver,” he quickly added.

Tony was slow to relax his shoulders, and it was a more vulnerable moment than when he’d found Tony vomiting into his toilet.

“I’ll be whatever Captain America wants me to be,” Tony finally said, flashing a grin. “Including a place to crash. You can pick anywhere you want. Just not here. Or”—Tony gave him a once-over that made Steve shiver under his scrutiny—“I take it back. Anywhere you want. This bed _is_ the nicest in the penthouse. I made sure of it.” 

“The mansion had a rooftop pool, you said?”

Tony laughed with a hint of delight. “Don’t let me scare you away already, we’re just getting started.”

He fell uncharacteristically silent as he studied Steve. Steve kept his face carefully neutral, just as Tony kept his voice carefully casual. Steve thought, maybe, that Tony was puzzling over him just as much as Steve always had for him. It made Steve want to preen somehow, stumping even the worldly genius.

What was important was that Tony not find out how Steve’s reactions toward him were becoming more amusement than annoyance, or else he would become even more insufferable.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Now**

At some point, a new nurse came in, startling Steve out of his light slumber. Even though the nurse had to lean over Steve to check Tony's bandages (they were clean) and for signs of response to visual and auditory stimuli (Steve had done it himself, earlier), he didn’t ask Steve to move. Tony didn’t stir, either.

The new nurse should have been Steve’s first clue. By the time he heard the sound of boots, heels, and harsh whispering out in the hallway and realized the shift change also came with the beginning of hospital visiting hours, he found he didn’t care much to move.

“Only family is allowed in outside of visiting hours. I thought they just made an exception for Captain America, but they didn’t, did they? ‘Captain America secretly married? But to who?’”

Someone slammed a newspaper onto the bedside stand.

“So, when were you going to tell us?”

Steve stroked a thumb over the thin silicone band on Tony’s ring finger. The last time he’d seen Tony out of the armor was when he'd been unceremoniously ejected from the lab so Tony could put on the armor, and he hadn't been wearing it then. Steve hadn’t been wearing his, either.

How stupid. Did the both of them wait until the moment they were in private to slip it on, without anyone else to notice but themselves?

“We weren’t.”

Jan faltered, like she wasn’t expecting Steve to acquiesce to her. What else could she possibly say in anger?  _I didn’t know Captain America was gay? Why him, of all people?_

She sighed, instead, coming up beside Steve. “Why didn’t you? I know we’ve had our disagreements, but I would have been happy for you.”

Steve squeezed Tony’s hand tighter. She was watching him, he knew, with his red eyes and unshaven face she had always complained about.

Thor rested a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I would offer my congratulations.”

“You think it’s the time for those?” Steve said flatly.

“You’re right. That was thoughtless of me. I’m sorry. Then, my condolences.”

“I won’t need them.”

“Maybe you would,” Clint said, “for being high enough to marry Stark.”

The others chuckled.

Steve snorted. The others didn't understand, how Steve's future was divided into a time before and after Tony.

“I won’t need them,” Steve said. “Save them for Tony, for being stupid enough to pull that maneuver yesterday.”

The rest of them watched him in silence. Once, Steve would have scowled at the attention or snapped, but he found little in him to care about the scrutiny.

“He’ll be fine,” Steve added curtly.

“I can save the congratulations for him, too,” Clint finally said. “I don’t know what was going on in your head, but for once, and I don’t know how the hell he did it, Tony made a good choice.”

The others laughed, but Steve couldn’t laugh with them. The memory replayed in his mind, reaching out to Tony's face, desperate for a response, any response. Knowing that Tony was in this place because of Steve. For Steve's sake.

As far as he was concerned, Tony had gone and made a mistake even worse.

* * *

 

 

**Then:**

Now, when Steve thought about first waking up in the future, he didn’t focus on the pain, or the shock, or the disbelief. It’d been there, he remembered exactly how he’d reacted, but the only thing that he could remember, free of the haze of distance, was the flood of information. It had overloaded his mind, and even though he’d stored away the revelations of the Internet and equality movements alongside weapons that could level a city within seconds, it had all been cloaked in unreality. His life since that point was the same: his emotions trying to catch up with the truth of what he saw and puzzle out what it made of them.

That was where he found himself with Tony Stark. Steve knew part of it was that the man took pride in being an enigma, that scrutiny was a challenge to him. So maybe Tony’s words could be deceptive, and so all Steve could trust was his actions. Tony fell asleep out of bed more often than in it, and almost always by accident. Tony drank like a fish, which everyone knew, but what they didn’t know was that his mouth was always doing  _something,_ talking or drinking or sucking on his lip, and maybe that was why he had his beard, so he could always run his fingertips along the trimmed hairs. Tony’s mind was frighteningly sharp, and it was hard to tell what he wanted you to think of it. Tony smiled and dazzled brighter the more people he was around, but his happiness tanked. When there was nothing but him and his projects, he muttered to himself and hummed in delight. 

He was a font of knowledge, and only time could tell whether that was intimidating or fascinating. So far, Steve had found that, in short doses, Tony could be quite tolerable. And Tony felt likewise. At some point they'd progressed from a respectful distance standing behind the couch to make his crude jokes to collapsing onto it to complain about Steve's life choices. The relative silences between them grew longer and less awkward. It seemed that at some point, Tony had given up the act around Steve, and contrary to what Tony would say, that didn’t make him any less interesting. Normally, Steve would find this whole affair irritating, but it’d become a subject of deep curiosity, to figure out how to push and pull with Tony, who had much more patience for him than anyone else in the future. Steve was quite ready to be of interest to someone for a reason other than what science had done to him.

Steve glanced at the clock, and the minute hand hadn't moved since the last time he checked. He huffed, jiggling his leg. He was lounging around the living room, which had increasingly become his evening leisure activity. Tony had a state of the art entertainment system, but Steve had rebuffed suggestions to watch his television in the theater, or watch shows in the privacy of his room. It had nothing to do with the clear line of sight of the elevator.

It was especially late this evening, late enough that Steve didn’t think that Tony would want anything more than a bath and his bed. Yet here Steve had waited, waiting for the last few hours. Steve jumped, twisting around when he heard the ding of the elevator as it approached. His heart rate picked up against common sense.

“Tony, you’re—” he began when the elevator door opened, and froze.

Tony and—someone—stumbled out of the elevator door together, and they were. Their mouths and bodies were mashed right in front of Steve, mouths moving like they meant to devour each other’s faces, hands disappeared under each other’s clothes.

“Tony!”

Tony groaned, pulling away from the other person. His frustration and desire was something Steve had never seen before. His face was flushed and his collar was skewed, the top few buttons unbuttoned, revealing the curls of chest hair. Steve felt something in his stomach twist with the knowledge that this was what desire looked like on Tony Stark—nothing like the humor in his eyes when he teased Steve.

The person who was with him swore softly, turning to see who their interruption had been.

Steve’s mind blanked.

The man’s shirt was untucked and half-open, and the zipper on his pants was similarly undone. Steve averted his eyes quickly, but he hadn’t missed the prominent bulge there, or the reddening marks on his neck and chest, or how how Tony’s hand hadn’t left the man’s waist. Tony’s hand had pushed up his shirt and rested on his hipbone, and it was obscene, how Steve knew exactly how Tony had left the man this way.

“Is that, oh fuck, that’s Thor, isn’t it?” the man said, and Steve’s eyes remained fixed on the television screen.

“If I had Thor waiting for me, I never would have bothered bringing you home.” Tony’s voice was strained, and a rush of ugly satisfaction came with it. Good, Steve thought. Tony should stew in his embarrassment. He clearly never felt enough of it to prevent him from doing idiotic, thoughtless things, not if his dick was too busy giving its input. “No, it’s Cap, can’t you tell?”

“I’m sorry, man, they’re big and blond, and no one can tell the difference when they’re wearing those stupid helmets.”

“Oh, shut up,” Tony said, “you’re not nearly as big or blond as them, but you’re way more stupid.”

Steve turned around now, unable to continue to pretend ignoring them anymore. Tony’s catch of the evening  _was_ tall and blond, with the face of a model and apparently the brain to match. 

“I thought you were working,” Steve said to Tony.

“You know how much woo-ing it takes to get a contract?” Tony had never used that tone of voice with Steve before, not even when Steve had made the mistake of mentioning Natasha to him. “I’ve gotten much more done at parties than any board meeting.”

“Is this work, too?”

“No,” Tony said, with a slow, vicious grin, “ _this_ is the afterparty. Nothing but fun. What about you? Are you looking for some fun?” 

Steve grit his teeth, and resisted the urge to throw the remote through the television screen.

“Does Pepper know you’re doing this?”

“It’s none of her business, and she wouldn’t care. It’s none of yours either, unless you mean to join us,” Tony said airily.

Steve turned around. The heat was gone, replaced by something fearsome in its chill as he watched the gunfight on the screen. “It’s your place. You can take home whoever—whatever you like.”

The man looked between them both, looking more and more nervous. “I mean, if it’s an issue, I could leave. I really don’t want to get on Captain America’s bad side.”

“Oh, believe me, you don’t want to get on Iron Man’s, either,” Tony told him.

“Uh, I mean. Maybe we should—”

“Now, Richard, darling, maybe _you_ should get back to doing what you were telling me you wanted. Was it me on my knees, or against the wall, again?”

“It’s just, kind of a boner killer, to think you’re about to get murdered by Captain America.”

“Forget him. You knew exactly why I brought you up here, and I don’t have the patience to coddle you and your little stint of self-doubt.” Tony pulled on Richard’s hand and, with a last glance at Steve, led him out of sight. Straight to Tony’s bedroom, right—right in front of Steve.

Steve waited for several moments, and part of him was ready to barge into the bedroom and—and what?

He hadn’t left the penthouse all day, and there was a company gym on the lower floors. He’d scared the living daylights out of the employees there the one time he’d gone and broken most of their sub-par equipment. He couldn't tell if Tony had been displeased or not at the time. He hoped he was this time.

The television shut off, leaving the room silent, save for Steve’s thoughts.

The thought of someone knowing their place and turning tail and running sounded like exactly what Steve needed. Steve got off the couch.

* * *

The next morning, Steve stayed in his room until the sun was high, the windows on the other skyscrapers in downtown Manhattan glaring blindingly bright. He snuck out to the kitchen and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl that had been perpetually unstocked when he'd first started living here a month ago.

Halfway through it, he heard the shuffling of feet and froze. Apparently, he still hadn’t managed to wait out Tony, who walked in with a robe that he’d only taken the most passing gesture to tie, the V of the robe drawing the eye to his ample chest hair. Before the serum injections, Steve had never been able to grow any of his own, and the serum hadn’t changed that. Although, according to the SHIELD publicist, that made him more marketable to the American people.

Tony moved like he didn’t give a care whether anyone saw. Well, why would he? Richard had seen plenty last night, and Steve’s opinion didn’t matter.

Steve watched him go to the coffee maker, noting the slight limp. He looked down when juice squirted on his fingers, the apple nearly crushed between his fingers.

“Do I need to leave?”

Tony gave him a strange look, bringing the mug to his lips. Steve could imagine it now, Richard walking in here soon, neither of their morning problems having been taken care of yet. The way they were pawing at each other, he was sure that last night they would have gone at it on the very couch Steve had been sitting on if he weren't there.

“Well, good morning to you too. Why? You heading out?” Tony asked.

“I don’t have any plan to, but if you need the place to yourself.” Steve gritted his teeth. “I’m sure Richard would appreciate my absence.”

Tony stared at him. “Well, I’m busy appreciating  _his_ absence, considering he left last night.” 

Steve stared back. “But you brought him over to stay the night.”

Tony made a look of disgust. “Why the hell would I do that?”

“You brought him home, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, for sex, not for a place to crash for free. Goodness, what did you expect? A reward for a good lay? He wasn’t bad, maybe a touch too trigger-happy. I’ve had better.”

A rush of gleeful satisfaction went through Steve, that a pretty face didn’t mean anything when it came to performance.

Tony set his mug down, rummaging through the cupboards for a bowl. “Can’t believe it,” he muttered. “I thought you knew me better by now. You think I let just anyone stay here?”

“You let me stay here,” Steve said. Tony ignored him, but Steve didn’t stop. “If you weren’t even serious, then you shouldn’t have--” Tony shouldn’t bring strange men back here. It was his tower, his property, but still, the thought, the idea of it rankled at Steve, made him itch for a solid punching bag. That’s what whorehouses were for, although Tony was a fancy man. He could afford a night, or several, in a nice hotel, and then Steve wouldn't have to stick around waiting for him to come home.

“I take it very seriously.” Tony turned around, chuckling into his mug. “I was very serious about wanting to suck cock last night.”

Steve put the apple down and wiped his fingers on his pants.

What was this? They’d nearly bitten off each other’s heads last night, and here Tony was, outright pleasant, teasing and joking like nothing had happened at all. When—when he had talked to Richard and looked at Steve from over his shoulder, it had felt like he’d been smug with Steve’s anger.

Was that it? Had he pleased Tony by getting mad? Was that a turn-on for Tony, and one of those—those kinks that Jan had wanted so hard to try out with him. Thinking about being nothing but—but an unwitting source of sexual satisfaction for Tony made Steve's inner valve go to red, set to explode.

Tony sat down in front of Steve, thoughtful. “Okay, okay. Is this a boundaries thing? Was it that I didn’t ask beforehand? I figured the place is big enough and my room is sound-proofed enough that I don’t have to phone you when I bring someone back, like back at the dear old academy.”

“You’re not listening to what I’m saying.”

“Believe me, I am, and I think it’s bullshit. It’s just sex,” Tony told him, and smiled at Steve’s expression. “Am I offending your delicate sensibilities? Would have thought that someone who lived during a war would be the last one to judge me. Then again, you weren't a typical soldier, were you?”

“I was engaged,” Steve said.

“Ah yes, to the love of your life,” Tony said.

He didn’t apologize, but he probably knew Steve would have punched him for it.

“And now you’re living in the most famous bachelor pad in America,” Tony continued. “What do you want me to do? _Not_ have sex? Which, you know, is not an option on the table.” 

“It’s—the last time you slept with someone, they tried to kill you.”

“Definitely not the last time. Now, a few last times ago, I slept with someone who put a gun to my head. It wasn’t the first time it happened, either.”

“Then why do you keep doing it?”

“What the hell, Steve? I zip around in a flying suit of armor and you’re acting like I should be taking fewer risks? Why are you so invested in who I do or don’t sleep with? Was your pal Bucky never allowed to go to those whorehouses back in Europe?”

“It’s not that,” Steve said. “I wouldn’t ever stop him. He was risking his life, same as me.”

“And I’m not?”

Steve remained silent. It was different, and for all his genius Tony couldn’t see why, because here he was taking people into  _their_ home—And it wasn’t like Richard  _knew_ Tony, knew what Tony was like when he wasn’t acting, knew what Tony was like when he was actually talking and not just flirting, knew Tony in the mornings, when he retched enough of his stomach so that only acid came up in the end—

“This isn’t my problem,” Tony said abruptly. “It’s yours. You judge people, sort them all into these different levels of—deserved respect. I don’t need you to sit here and talk to me, knowing that you think I’m lower than you because I like to fuck men.”

“I never said anything about that,” Steve said. “This is—it’s our home.” No, that was the wrong answer, and more words spilled out trying to correct his error. “Letting strangers in is...disruptive.”

“I know what you’re doing,” Tony said. “You broke up with Jan, you miss that sort of connection of living with someone intimately. But I never tolerated that bullshit. You can’t sit here and tell me what to do. Even if we were fucking, you couldn’t do that to me.”

Steve ground his teeth. Here was Tony, making him out to be the bad guy, and he was only doing it because he  _cared._ He cared, and he could be objective about the whole thing and tell Tony so. Tony needed more people like that, who had his best interests at heart and weren’t cowed to tell him what to do.

“That two alpha males in one place thing really isn’t working out, is it? What a shame. It was the same issue with Greg and me as kids. So, it wasn’t the sociopathy that drove us apart, after all.”

“I’m not planning to leave,” Steve told him.

“Well, either you’re going to have to live with me bringing people home for sex, or you can take that offer to sleep with me.”

Steve couldn’t do either.

“Don't think too hard on it, darling, or you might miss your chance. It's a limited time offer, you know,” Tony said, tapping on the side of his head.

Steve jerked back in his chair, stunned by the impact. It was like the ice, creeping up his neck. He hated Tony like this. Being cruel didn’t suit him.

“I need to be alone,” he said, standing up abruptly. As he beat his escape, Steve caught the glimpse of Tony’s lips tightening, like he’d won the battle and hated it. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Now**

Steve shot up, his heart racing. The too-small visitor’s chair toppled over. Jan had backed up to the opposite wall by now, hands up.

“I’m sorry!”

Steve stared at her in wide disbelief. She offered nothing further. Steve reached for the chair, setting it right and sinking back into it. “Sorry. I didn’t see you there. What is it?”

Jan’s eyes and voice went soft, which wasn’t a much better alternative. “I heard you’ve been in here all day. I thought I would ask if you wanted to get something to eat.”

“I ate the sandwich from the vending machine.” The bread was soggy and the cheese and vegetables only served to differentiate between textures of barely edible cardboard. It was embarrassing, how easily he had become used to luxury and the finest ingredients. Today, though, he doubted any number of Tony's favorite Michelin Stars would have offered more.

Jan sighed, running a hand through her hair. Exasperation was far preferable to pity. “You really can’t stay here in forever.” She frowned, and Steve stared back. She broke eye contact first. “It’d drive Tony nuts to know you’re doing this.”

It would. Even after they’d been married, things hadn’t become idyllic. Not with Tony being Tony, and, he had to admit, not with Steve being Steve.

Steve had assumed that marriage meant never tiring of the other person’s presence, but reality hadn’t shaped up to his fantasies. Tony would insist on his time alone in the workshop or his office, calling Steve’s presence too loud. Even Steve couldn’t be around Tony all the time. Sometimes, in his darker moments, he wondered if they were doing it wrong. Maybe Tony was right, that they both came on too strong, that they were both too damn stubborn to compromise for the rest of their lives.

But then Tony would come to him and drape himself over Steve, adorably demanding in a way that made Steve want to give him, the man who had everything, anything.

Steve clasped his hands, lowering his head. For the past day, he hadn’t felt much of anything. He didn’t need to, not when he was certain Tony would wake up at any moment. But it was there now, the annoyance prickling beneath the surface. He kept imagining it, how he’d shout at Tony, how Tony would see how reckless and stupid he had been. How Tony would see how badly he’d messed this up, how he’d never do it again. It’d been the only way Steve had kept himself sane, mulling on the one way to get Tony Stark to change.

He couldn’t handle this after all, he thought in a distant panic. It'd been a long time since he'd wished to be put back into the ice, but the idea of never getting the chance to yell at Tony for scaring him so much was enough.

“Damn it, Steve,” Jan snapped. “Fine. We need to talk. Team business.”

Well, Jan should have damn well started with that if she wanted him out of here. She didn’t have to try to be kind and understanding. Steve’s movements were stiff when he stood up from the chair.

There was a diner, small and with a smoking section, across the street from the hospital. Jan bit back a retort, when she asked him to pick any place he liked, and he pointed there.

Jan ordered herself a salad and sandwich. After taking a look at Steve, she ordered for him as well. Steak and potatoes. So she was feeling charitable today.

They sat in silence, although at least Jan didn’t look at her cell phone while they were doing it. Steve wasn’t sure what room for social niceties there could be, not when his husband was across the street in the hospital, hooked up to more machines than when he was piloting the armor. Jan seemed to have picked that up, as she looked out the window and offered commentary that Steve couldn’t make heads or tails of, on the fashion of the people walking by the window. All Steve saw were low-cut shirts and too-short skirts, but Jan went on about the unflattering hems and cuts and how their money would be better spent at a tailor’s than at a high-end boutique.

After even she grew tired of talking, she pushed his water at him. Steve picked it up and drank it in one gulp. It was the most delicious water he’d ever tasted. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had anything to drink. Maybe when a nurse had offered him some in a paper cup. Jan pushed her water toward him afterward.

“Okay,” she finally said, after Steve had downed hers in a matter of seconds. “I get it. You don’t want the small talk. Let’s talk shop, Captain.” She stretched her fingers before reaching into her bag and pulling out a newspaper. “Have you actually read this article?”

Steve scanned the headline. It was the one from yesterday, with the headline plastered over the front page. After Jan pulled out today's newspaper, he noted the story had been relegated to the entertainment section.

“Why should I? The first thing Fury ever told me was that there was a lot written about me, and if I wanted to retain my sanity, to not read any of it.”

“Fury? With all _our_ best interests in mind? Fury knows exactly how the media works. If he told you to ignore it, it was because he wanted to control the media narrative around you himself and not let you do anything to screw with his little PR plan.” 

Steve had worked that part out long ago, but he wasn’t interested in keeping up any persona but his own. Better yet, he wanted to be left alone.

When he said it, Jan sighed, like she was talking to someone much smaller than Steve was. “Steve, you volunteered to become a supersoldier. One of a kind. And apparently decided to marry the person whose dirty laundry was being aired to the whole world before he even learned to walk. What were you expecting?”

Steve opened his mouth to retort, that she was wrong. Tony knew exactly how to be private and close himself off; getting him to talk about something he didn’t want to talk about was an impossible task.

It happened in an instant. Someone walked by, too close, and there was a click of a camera shutter, and Steve saw red.

“Steve! Steve, no!”

“I’m sorry!” the man, no, he couldn’t have been more of a kid, struggled, and Steve pressed his hand harder against his chest against the dirty floor. “I’m sorry!”

He didn't even try to deny what he'd been doing, too scared of the possibility of angering Captain America more than he wanted that fat paycheck.

“Delete it,” Steve said. “And whoever hired you, tell them that the Ultimates will make them regret it.”

“Okay!” The man scrambled up, turning his camera around. His finger trembled as he pressed the trash icon in front of Steve. “There, see? It’s gone, not going to bother you anymore!”

Steve took his time to back off.

“Go.”

The man took no time in rushing out, not even minding how his camera swung wildly from its strap and banged against a few tables as he ran out. Steve felt an impossible headache coming on watching him go, as the supersoldier serum had nipped those in the bud.

“You’ve truly become Captain America, threatening to sue there,” Jan said with a smile so thin, it could cut. The diner had gone dead silent, and Steve kept his eyes focused on their table.

“I wasn’t threatening to sue,” Steve said.

“We’re leaving.” Jan said. Her voice was like ice.

The only time he’d heard her like that was after he’d called Hank the lowest of trash. Afterward, she’d cried in the bathroom. She’d tried to muffle her sobs, but Steve had heard her from their bed anyway. Steve still didn't understand why.

“To go, please,” she told the waitress who approached them with their food in hand. Jan stuffed more than a few bills into the empty water glass. “For the excellent service.”

When they left the diner, Jan’s heels clicked against the pavement. She waved over a valet, who gave her back her keys.

“We’re not going back to the hospital?” Steve asked at the door held ajar.

“Hell no, we’re not.” Jan flipped open her phone. “Still need to finish that team business, don't we?” 

* * *

 

 

**Then:**

When Tony kissed him the first time, he came in open-mouthed and wet. Steve came out of it sans shirt and with a newfound addiction to the taste of wine.

Tony moaned loudly when Steve grabbed his ass and pulled him in, and it was a good show, but he didn’t need to put one on to convince Steve to stumble into his bedroom and climb into his bed. Tony pulled away, and Steve panted as Tony felt his way to the bulge in his pants.

“What the hell?” Tony said, rubbing his fingers over Steve’s crotch again. “You were packing that and you didn’t jump my bones before this?”

Steve hung his head, slowly pushing his hips against Tony’s fingers that were too insistent, almost sharp with the sensation. “I didn’t know if you could make it worth my while.”

Tony giggled, dropping his mouth down and rubbing his cheek against Steve’s clothed thigh. “Fuck, I will make you feel so good, Steve. Fuck the Ultimates, you can be my new bed slave, how’s that sound?”

It was a high order, when they hadn’t even had sex yet, but Steve shuddered, thinking of it, knowing that his dick was entirely on-board with the thought.

“Get those off now,” Tony muttered, snapping the band of Steve’s underwear. “Faster. What the hell is that super soldier serum good for?”

Steve rolled them over. Tony let out a high, surprised moan that melted Steve’s brain, and Steve trapped him under his body. Tony’s eyes were bright, grinning like he couldn’t believe his luck. He grabbed Steve’s crotch, catching the fabric around his cock roughly.

He wasn’t hesitant at all, which Steve had expected. What Steve hadn’t expected was how much of a tease Tony was. Steve ground insistently against Tony’s hand, but he continued to massage him, like he was trying to get Steve to relax. It was the last thing that could have worked, and Steve thought he might crack at the tension building up, ready to be snapped with a tug.

“C’mon,” Steve growled. “Tony. Get on with it, already.”

“Does the super soldier serum make you hornier faster? Or were you always this impatient?” Tony laughed as he brought Steve in for another kiss. Steve mouthed at him, intentionally making it wetter than it needed to be.

“I see, so you become a worse kisser the more turned on you get,” Tony observed idly as Steve rolled his eyes, going back in for a proper kiss that left Tony no room to complain. He rewarded Steve by sticking his hand down his pants, and Steve nearly fell atop him.

Tony grumbled. “The last guy who did that to me didn’t get to play in the orgy. You’re lucky I like you.”

Steve pinned Tony's free hand by the wrist to the mattress and made Tony look him in the eye. “Don’t talk about anyone else.”

Tony took a few breaths, and there was a flash of white as his tongue swept over his lips. “Jealousy doesn't usually do it for me, but you could convince me otherwise.”

“Shut up,” Steve said, mouthing at his neck, pressing him into the bed and pushing his hips against Tony’s long, dexterous fingers, making sure Tony was securely beneath him.

“Pushy, pushy,” Tony said, smiling at him with so much fondness, and between his fingers and the smile in his eyes, Steve wondered when he’d become so stupid over him

“You’re the one who kissed me,” Steve muttered.

“Yeah, so I should finish this,” Tony said, and he was the biggest liar in the world because he stopped touching Steve. Steve groaned in frustration, but went when Tony rolled them back over.

“You should relax,” Tony said, kissing down his bare stomach, and Steve was the opposite of relaxed, his body tensing at every brush of Tony’s lips. When it’d been Gail, or Jan, they had giggled when Steve had ran his fingers down their torsos, kissing their breasts and hips. When Tony did it, all it did was ramp up his lust to impossible levels, and he thrust his hips up in small little motions, gasping at Tony's searing heat everywhere he touched his fingers, his lips, to.

When Tony reached Steve’s underwear, he kissed along the band. Little pinpoints from where his hair brushed Steve’s skin, and Steve twisted a little, too overwhelmed to know whether he liked it or not.

“Here,” Tony said, catching on quick as he rubbed his cheek and chin widely across Steve’s thigh as he started rolling down Steve’s underwear. “I’ll show you.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Now**

He and Jan ended up at the mansion, right across the street from Central Park, with the rooftop pool and a training gym mid-construction. He and Tony had spent a week here after they’d married. A change of pace, Tony had teased him, and had done up the master bedroom with rose petals scattered over the bed, a plethora of scents that had made Steve’s nose itch, and a dizzying assortment of tools and toys that Steve had never heard of, let alone used, even after months of dating Tony. Their secret honeymoon had no dazzling beaches or warm, clear water, but Tony had left things to Pepper for the week and stayed with Steve, uninterrupted, so it was perfect.

It was the last place in the world Steve wanted to be.

“Well, not the headline I wanted to make,” Jan said, scrolling through her phone. She was sitting at the head of the table in what was to be the briefing room, and when she looked up from her phone and glared, she was doing a fine Fury impression. “You should know this by now, Cap. Take out one camera, and three more will take its place.”

“They shouldn’t be harassing people who are minding their own business,” Steve said shortly as Jan turned the screen at him. He saw himself straddling the kid from the diner, and grunted.

“And you shouldn’t tackle someone who isn’t a threat, no matter how annoying they are. You’re a supersoldier, Steve. You’re not a scrawny stick who can’t make it up a flight of stairs. Lay a finger on someone, and the assault charges can come flying.”

Once, the idea of Steve being sued was laughable. But now, the name Captain America didn’t bring as much goodwill as it used to, ever since Americans had to come to the uncomfortable realization that Steve Rogers existed under the mask.

Jan scratched behind her ear. “Well, we got a distraction, after all.”

“Why would you want one?” Steve sat up, realizing that it wasn’t coincidence that had made Jan choose a public location, rather than coming to the mansion in the first place.

“Because, I figure the last thing you actually want the paparazzi to swarm is what’s going on with Tony. They’re like buzzards. They'll pick at anything. It can easily come to them catching onto your special relationship and haranguing Stark Industries about it. You know the instant Tony wakes up and hears there’s a scandal going on with his company, he’ll be out of that bed, and even Captain America couldn’t stop him then.”

A scandal, was it? Tony had joked, that the best thing Steve could ever do for the country was to get Stark Industries’ stock prices to rise so much that the rest of the market went with it. Everyone would love him then, and the next age of prosperity would all be thanks to what was in his pants.

But Jan was right. There was no way their marriage could be anything but a scandal.

Steve breathed out. “You wanted them to think that we’re the ones who are married.” The words left a bitter taste on his tongue, and to think that the idea would have brought him so much joy not so long ago.

“Oh, believe me, they didn’t need my help. I’ve had over a dozen requests for interviews, and even more in congratulations. A lot of friends and family are pissed at me now, turning away all the flowers and gifts in the past twenty-four hours.”

Well, Steve’s actual husband was in the hospital, so he couldn’t really bring himself to sympathize.

“I know I sound like a complete bitch, but I’m the new leader of the Ultimates, and I’m trying.” Jan clasped her hands, putting them on the table. “But I need you to talk to me. What the hell do you want me to do, Steve? Let people keep on believing I dumped Hank for you and now we’re married?”

No, Steve thought, because she’d dumped  _him_ for Hank.

“I thought it was their _job_ to fact-check. The divorce is long and messy enough they're trying to make a biopic of it, and polygamy’s illegal. And keeping it secret? Just the NDAs alone,” Jan said. “Pain in the ass.”

“I have no interest in keeping up a lie.”

“I thought so. So, it’s tell people we’re not an item anymore, and then send them out digging through every marriage court in the city? What I don’t get,” Jan said, leaning back, “is why you kept it a secret in the first place. It would have been a whirlwind, but better than the effort to keep it hidden. And how you got Tony to agree to it. He was going to have the wedding of the millennium a few months ago. And in the end, you only had one witness.”

Steve could weather the criticism. He’d done it for most of his life, after all, the pity behind his back and the contempt to his face. He had learned long ago that most insults were full of shit. But it was one thing to tell Steve that, and another thing to talk about his husband like that.

“You really dragged me away from Tony to tell me this?” Steve saw how Jan sat up straight, her attention on him. He should have felt like garbage, knowing he was scaring her, but he hadn’t felt much better to begin with today.

“I did,” she said. “To get you out of your own head and think about the team. The mission? Tony would think it’s important.”

“Who the hell cares what Tony thinks!? What he thinks is important nearly got him killed!”

Jan jumped when the table jumped. Steve curled the fist he’d slammed into the surface, lowering his head. He was utterly exhausted.

“Maybe it wasn’t the right time for this,” Jan said. “You must be scared out of your mind. I know what it’s like to lash out when you’re like that.”

Steve wanted to say something back, to try to deny it, but what was the point of denial? His energy had been sapped from him. He looked down at his fingers. What had he done now, to bring wrath like this? He wanted the numbness back, the fugue he’d gone through, when waking up from the future, and from last night, waiting by Tony’s bedside.

Jan sat back, crossing her arms. “Sorry. I knew, but still didn’t believe that you two were—together. I thought the idea of you two was nuts at first, but I can see it working out.”

Steve’s eyes stung when he huffed. “I’m stubborn, and old-fashioned,” Steve quoted back at her. “It’s my way or the highway, and nothing gets through my head if I don’t want it to.”

“Well, yeah, but you’re loyal. To a fault, some would say. And Tony, who’s the most charming, people-pleasing, loneliest man I can think of, could appreciate that.”

“Tony’s a goddamn idiot.” And he was just as loyal back. Steve knew, even when he could barely take Tony seriously, that he was a teammate that he could trust his life to. There was an intensity in Tony that burned like a fire, unending, that Tony took for granted, like so many other things he had. It wasn’t something that was allowed to just go out.

“Maybe, but you'll be happy with him, anyway, won't you?”

With a growing nausea, Steve realized, that Jan didn't know. When Tony had revealed the secret of his cancer, it'd only been to Thor and Steve. He must have planned, that evening, to reveal it to the team all in one fell swoop. For those of them who hadn't shown up that evening, that was over, the thing that Tony couldn't bring himself to face.

Steve breathed in deeply. He pulled out his own phone, looking at the blank, dark screen and his reflection there. His face was beginning to get blotchy. The more visibly upset he got, the softer and quieter Jan's voice, her gestures, became. Only the humiliation of potentially crying in front of her kept his eyes fixed squarely on the screen.

“I can’t,” he finally said. “I can’t talk to anyone about it. Me and Tony.” 

  


* * *

 

 

**Then:**

Tony looked down at him, his hand running through Steve’s hair. Steve turned his head toward Tony’s stomach, and Tony shifted his lap to accommodate him. There was the barest smile on his lips, and Steve found he wanted to reach out and make it wider.

When he lifted his hand, the sunlight glinted off his hand, making it glow golden. Steve found himself entranced by the sight. He twisted his fingers around, looking at it, and decided that he liked the look of it.

Tony caught his hand, lifting his hand to his lips and grinning. He pulled it closer to his mouth, and Steve felt a hint of tongue. Steve closed his eyes, feeling Tony’s tongue around the base of his middle finger, questioning before he slipped the finger between his lips and sucked. Steve sighed, and moved his hand so that it cupped Tony’s face.

Tony dropped it, going back and smoothing his hand through Steve’s hair. He didn’t seem upset, and Steve wondered how many times Tony had had his advances rebuffed. He closed his eyes and timed his own breaths to Tony’s.

It wasn’t that Steve didn’t want to. In fact, it still alarmed him how much he could want Tony, how even the deepest satiation lasted for only so long, and made him crave touch even more when it was over.

A shadow went over him, and he opened his eyes to the back of Tony’s StarkPad.

“One day,” Steve told him, “we should do this outside.”

“Right between all the disease-infested bugs and pollen and wild, rabid animals that will eat our faces off. Wonderful.”

“It’s good for you. You’ll be fine. You know, I wrestled a bear once.”

The tablet tilted, and Tony squinted down at him. He jiggled a leg, and Steve snorted, wrapping one arm around Tony's waist. He felt Tony inhale, and watched him.

He knew he shouldn’t stare at Tony at this. It unnerved the other man, having Steve observe him like a cat. Steve knew that, but he didn’t think he was capable of only looking at Tony from the corner of his eye. He demanded your attention like that. It was harmless, committing Tony’s image to memory, and it was stupidly, wonderfully sentimental to think about how simple movements could look so entrancing in someone else’s body.

“Well, darling, while you manfully protect me from rampaging beasts, I’ll work for our livelihood. So that Captain America can live in the lap of luxury.”

“I like your lap the best,” Steve said.

“You say that now, but you’ll be a sight to behold when you squander all your life’s savings and inheritance and end up in the poor-house.” Tony tapped at his screen. “What charities do you like?”

“Hm?”

“Never mind, you can just stay there. I like you like that. Veterans’ associations, the Boys and Girls Club, and…oh, a hospital. Animal shelter? You like dogs, don’t you?”

“Why are you asking?”

“I’m just…distributing my funds for the future.”

“You’re working on your will?”

Tony stilled, before sighing and ruffling Steve’s hair. “It’s morbid business, but if I don’t do it, then it’s all getting reinvested by Greg. I’m not letting him win, not even in death.”

Steve felt like he’d been dropped on the floor with how his head spun. He mashed his nose below Tony’s belly button and pressed closer, although it was likely physically possible by now.

He felt Tony shift, but the other man didn’t offer any words up. What was Tony going to tell him? Even money couldn’t buy his life away from cancer. Steve had known the first time he’d kissed Tony back that he was falling into something he couldn’t handle. But there was a reason that Tony lived like he did, to the fullest. Back then, it’d made Steve envious. Back then, he never would have imagined ending up here. That was just like Tony, to turn his views upside-down and make him realize there was so much room for life to change for the better.

“Really now,” Tony said finally, and his thumb rubbed against the rim of Steve’s ear, his other hand on Steve’s chest. “You're so clingy today. Are you sure you can’t get drunk?”

“Maybe.”

They were going to go to dinner later, and afterward, Steve thought he would test his luck and go on a drive. Nowadays, his luck turned out for the better when it came to coaxing Tony to do something he wanted. Steve found he didn’t want to wait anymore.

Steve’s heart was beating much faster than Tony’s. Steve wondered if Tony noticed. He licked his lips, and his heart stopped.

“Marry me.”

He couldn’t quite make out Tony’s eyes in this light, shadowed by the setting sun behind him. He tried to look for something in the long moments that passed.

“Really?” Tony asked. “You’re not going to get on bended knee?”

This was no time to joke. Steve tried to sit up, only for Tony to put his hands on his shoulders to keep him down.

“I will if it makes you say yes,” Steve said.

Tony tilted his head, and now Steve thought he might vibrate out of his skin if Tony kept him waiting. Surely, Tony couldn’t be that cruel when turning down a proposal.

“I thought I had you pinned down,” Tony said carefully, “but sometimes I really don’t understand you at all. You know, I don’t like it when I get proved wrong, but you must delight in it.”

Steve swallowed. They were ninety stories up, but he had the fullest confidence he could beat the elevator down if he took the stairs.

“When I first saw you,” Tony continued, “my first thought was: I’ve never seen a lovelier man, but me and him? Never going to work out.”

“Were you right?”

Tony let out an affected sigh. He let go of Steve’s shoulders and eased him into a sitting position before framing his hands around Steve’s face. “I don’t know. You’re going to have a lifetime of opportunities to prove me wrong.”

Steve put his own hands over Tony’s, and through their shared touch, could feel the smile that wanted to split open his own face.

Their first kiss as an engaged couple ended with Tony becoming too enthusiastic and both of them toppling to the floor, but of all of them, it was Steve’s favorite.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Now**

“Magic!” Thor shouted, slamming a fist against the small tray at the end of the bed. It prompted a nurse to come in and glare at them while offering a few choice words. Since being quiet hadn’t helped things along any, Steve wondered if Thor's alternative was preferable.

It wasn’t like there was much to disturb. Someone, or several someones, from Stark Industries had come, and whoever they talked to or whatever they talked about, soon after, the closest residents in the hospital wing had been relocated to different wards or facilities.

“It was magic,” Thor insisted again, a bit more quietly, and went off to wherever he had to go to get to Asgard. Under a bridge underneath a piece of cardboard, a nudist beach, the corner of a backroom of a club filled with smoke and hard drugs. Steve didn’t care anymore what had to be done. If Tony needed a damn fairy godmother to save him, Steve wouldn’t stop until he'd wrung out every last speck of fairy dust in the world.

They had seen that in him, back in the war. A relentlessness that would not bow or budge, and they had thought that it was a great quality in a superhuman, the perfect soldier.

Tony had teased him about it. If he'd had a different temperament, Tony told him, he would have made an excellent agent, tasked with the most clandestine of ops—a supersoldier whose existence was known by half a dozen people, and whose face was known to none. That was how they created loyalty, Tony said, by taking away everything from someone but the cause, and wasn’t that Steve in a nutshell?

But no, Steve thought, looking at Tony. He’d become too heartbroken twelve hours ago to keep running his hand through Tony’s hair and hoping for a response. He hadn’t lost everything, after all. And if the world took Tony away from him, there was precious little left in it worth pledging his allegiance to.

If Tony went, it should be on his own terms. Flashy, a spectacle, a daredevil dive into sacrifice and glory, and not a trace remaining but his renown. He’d made enough of his mark on the world, Tony would say, enough to want his life to be more memorable than the circumstances of his death.

It was nothing like this, wasting away in a hospital bed while his husband fretted over him, like those soap operas that Tony was full of disdain for, yet always up-to-date on the latest developments.

Tony would hate this, and that was what it’d take, right? Steve’s husband didn’t take hating things very well. He’d put on his armor, whether it was the Iron Man or a business suit, and head out to face his own battle. He wasn’t afraid of much, and some of it was arrogance and most of it was pride, but what made Steve fall in love with him was the heart underneath.

Steve thought that he was good at picking his fights where they mattered. The freedom and safety of the American people, stopping fascist monsters where they stood. Zero tolerance for hatred and abuse. Now, Steve chose to die on hills out of fear for what he could lose. It was because of Tony. Oh, Steve had fallen in love before, but it was Tony who had reached into his mind and turned it inside out, scrambled up all his emotions. It was Tony who had made Steve realize he was a coward.

“You have to wake up,” Steve said, and his own voice made him jump in the silence of the room. He reached out, grasping Tony’s hand, ignoring how his own hand trembled. “You wouldn’t go down without a fight, would you? How would you like people to remember you like that?” The beeping of the heart monitor would never leave his mind as long as he lived.

“I’m sorry. You have to come back, just to hear it from me. Wake up, so that we could do this together.”

Between his hands, Tony's fingers twitched.

  


* * *

  
  


 

**Then:**

“Hey,” Tony said, and Steve looked up from his files.

“Hey,” Steve said back, and leaned his face back, expectant. Tony kissed him obligingly, before sitting down on the couch beside Steve.

“How was work?”

Tony shrugged, his face working through an uncharacteristic number of expressions. “It was…work.”

Steve hummed. He'd figured as such. Tony hadn't mentioned having to stay late tonight, so when he hadn't shown up before the sunset, Steve figured something had come up.

Tony drummed his fingers on his thigh. “What do you think about Asia for a month?”

“A month?” A month of just him and Tony sounded…fantastic, really, but Tony didn’t appear particularly enamored with the thought.

“Or Europe. South Africa? Anywhere you’d want. A month on a private island, with a mandatory nudist beach,” Tony added with a wink.

Steve hadn’t exactly had much time for sight-seeing, and previously had no real inclination to travel. Just walking outside was a trip into a different world, and going home hadn't felt like it for a long time, before Tony.

“What’s this about?”

“I figure I have Captain America in my bed, obviously following my gut instinct has been working out for me. So if it wants to go eat some octopus, then I should listen to it.”

Steve made a bit of a face, but he was sincere when he said, “As long as I have you.”

Tony stuttered a bit, and Steve didn’t want to be the type of man who caught his husband ( _husband_ ) off-guard when he mentioned he loved him. 

“Maybe Asia then. Japan? I need to see your face the first time you try sashimi.”

“I’ll think about it,” Steve conceded, and Tony finally smiled back at him, making Steve’s heart flutter.

“Oh, I think I know those legs.”

Steve startled a bit. The TV had been on as background noise, and was now cycling through to an action movie, with a tall blonde in an abandoned warehouse loading her gun.

“Oh, I _do_ know her,” Tony said, and Steve frowned. There weren’t many beautiful woman that Tony didn’t know in more intimate ways. The thought used to make him wind up, with an unexplained urge to break glass, and he didn’t think it made him feel much better to know its name was jealousy. “I could introduce you to her, if you want. I think you’d like her. Not a diva at all. Amazing figure, both inside and outside.” Tony held his hands up when Steve glared at him. “You know I’ll always have an eye for God-given beauty.” 

It was how Tony worked, appreciative of beauty, appreciative of so much in life that you wouldn’t expect from the man who had everything, but he usually wasn't so unabashed over it.

Steve frowned at him. “And what about beauty given by a serum?”

“Well, serum, science, it all comes from nature.”

The screen did a pan over her body, and Steve turned an assessing eye on it. She was beautiful, but after Tony, it was increasingly difficult to see other people’s bodies as little more than utilitarian.

“Do you want me to agree with you, when you say things like that?” Was he supposed to say that none of them compared to how beautiful he saw Tony? Or was this another one of those kinks, that Tony wanted him to indulge, and Steve didn't know how well he could do with this particular one.

“Well, it might be good for you. You—you may be back on the market sooner than you thought.”

“What?”

Tony sighed, and his face went through several minute expressions before settling on the worst one, a flat, smooth one.

“I...had an appointment, this afternoon.”

His tone of voice made Steve's stomach curl. “With an investor?” he asked, helplessly.

Tony shook his head.

“You didn't tell me.”

“Because you'd worry, love, and retreat inside your beautiful head. But you know, I had to get the legal team together, so why shouldn't you know? It’s progressed,” Tony told him flatly, tapping the side of his head. “The tumor. Faster than the doctors expected, even. They told me to update my will, although of course I did that before we were even married, and again after we signed the papers. Started the process of doing it again, this afternoon.”

Steve stared at him, unblinking. He half-expected Tony to break into a grin, talk about how stupid Steve’s face looked, and then Steve would have to punch him, for making such an awful joke. Worse, Tony looked gentle, like it was Steve who needed comfort.

“Before,” Steve said, “they said you had five years.” It had seemed like an eternity to Steve before, when they’d only been together for a few months, but now it made his heart miss several beats.

“Well, to be specific, they said that with my progress, they were hopeful about the longer prospects, which were about five years, yes.”

Steve took several deep breaths. “A-and now?”

There was a tapping on the side of the couch, as Tony looked at the screen. “It’s probably better for us to take our vacation now, rather than later.”

Steve’s head spun from where he sat. Tony’s hands slid into his hair, and he leaned over, feeling Tony’s breath on the back of his neck.

“I'm sorry,” Tony said, massaging the back of his neck. Steve shook his head.

“While on the topic, I was thinking,” Tony started slowly, “about us two, going public with our marriage.”

Steve’s stomach dropped, and his palms started to go clammy.

“I mean, now that the wedding is already over, there’s no need for this type of secrecy. Everyone gets hyped up for the wedding, not for the banality of married life and hand-holding.”

Steve could spend the rest of his life holding hands with Tony, but people’s interests weren’t held by things that lasted. Which would just make their story even more riveting, wouldn’t it?

He sat up, his vision tunneling. “Isn't just us, enough?” he asked. “We don't need other people to tell us what we're doing is right.”

“Huh. I've never cared about that part, really.”

Then why did Tony want this so much? Was this his way of going out with a bang? Of ending things?

“But you care so much now, about other people knowing. Why? Did you mean it, or did you just feel sorry for me, when you said yes?” Steve asked him. Or was Tony using him, but he didn't even want to voice that possibility aloud.

There was a stunned silence. Tony's fingers had stopped moving on the back of Steve's neck. It was an ugly, twisted mistake that had crawled its way up Steve's throat.

“What the fuck?” Tony said wonderingly, and his hand slipped away, leaving Steve cold. “Did you feel sorry for me, when you proposed?” 

“No!”

“Then why don't you ever believe this, no matter how hard I try to prove it to you? Or maybe you don’t want to. What scares you so much about us? Is it a reputation thing?” 

Steve didn't know what it was he was choking on, that tasted so much like fear.

If the media found out about Tony’s cancer, they would twist their marriage into every single version of Tony's fears. That Steve felt pity for him and wanted him to not be alone, that he had a duty. Steve had watched many soldiers die alone in the world, but he hadn’t given himself to them, put his whole heart in their hands.

Steve cared about Tony so much that it scared him, and Tony was here telling him that he didn’t.

The thought of Tony being gone terrified him, and who knew when it could happen. He could easily collapse one day, and that would be it. Steve didn't want the public to always see them with a countdown timer ticking down over their heads. The world had already taken away so much from him—the least it could leave him with was time

Tony hadn't stopped, and it hurt so much, to think he'd been holding this back while they played at marriage and happiness.

“Are you scared of commitment?” Tony asked. “Is that it?”

If Steve had been scared once, then Tony had cured him of that. He shook his head, hoping Tony was watching.

There was a long silence. Steve squeezed his eyes shut, not ready to open them to see tears.

“I'm dying,” Tony said, finally. “That doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” His voice was resigned, and weary. “Maybe it would have been easier if I didn't.”

Steve brought his feet up to the couch, wrapping his arms around his knees and burying his face there. He was trembling, and he knew if he unwound from this spot, then that was it. The dam would collapse, and he couldn't show that. If Tony showed him kindness now, he wouldn't last.

A small sigh came from beside him, and the couch shifted when Tony got up. There was a pause, like Tony was ready to say something. But even with all of Steve's enhanced senses, he didn't hear anything other than the sound of footsteps walking away.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Now**

Sunlight glinted off the face of the photo frame. Steve angled it, and the light washed out the details of the smiling faces in the frame. He had the sudden urge to run his thumb along the edge, but he didn’t.

A Bucky and Gail he never had the chance to meet, with a child in the frame who was physically older than Steve now. They’d been adults when they’d parted, but not adults like this, with a new house and a newborn and new jobs. A fresh start. He didn’t try to swallow the lump in his throat. Sometimes, he figured, he just liked to prolong the pain.

He’d been here dozens of times before, memorized every framed photo and most of the ones in the photo albums. But again, it was like he was a stranger in here, as Gail tutted around, preparing coffee. Steve didn’t have the heart to tell her that not even months of being married to Tony Stark had made the taste any more palatable.

Steve couldn't remember the last time he and Gail had sat down together, just the two of them without Bucky as a buffer, just to talk. It had to have been before the war; the few times they had met during the war, they’d been interested in more than just talking. The thought came with an odd mix of guilt and nostalgia, but then again, almost everything else about the Barnes did that to Steve.

He hadn't meant to meet her alone, but after being ejected out of the hospital ward for shouting at a doctor, then bursting into tears in the middle of the room, he hadn't thought there was anywhere else he could go. Just because Tony was reacting to stimuli again, the doctors told him, didn't mean that recovery was guaranteed. But Steve knew better than them, what Tony was capable of fighting through.

Stay at the hospital, or the Triskelion, and they would judge him—stay at the Tower, and he'd judge himself.

Gail finally set the coffee on the table, taking a seat on the chair diagonal to Steve. She quirked an eyebrow at him, and it worked just as well as it had in her youth. It must have done similarly, to all the people she’d investigated and interviewed over the years.

“Congratulations,” Gail said. “Is your calling on us your way of warding off our anger at not telling us?”

Steve picked up the mug and breathed in the smell. Whatever the taste, it had a enticing, heady aroma. It reminded him of Tony.

“Who’s the lucky woman?”

“You believe what they say?” Steve asked.

“You wouldn't be wearing a ring for no reason. Especially not here.”

Steve's left thumb went to the ring, stroking it. “You’re not surprised?”

“It’s been about a year. That’s longer than most people back in our day courted for. And if I know you, you dive into things the moment you get it into your head. Once you decided you’d marry her, there was no stopping you.”

“It’s—” Steve’s throat went dry, and how was he going to tell everyone else if even telling it to one of his closest friends was this hard? “It’s Iron Man. Tony Stark.”

Gail didn’t say anything. Her face barely registered a change in expression, and Steve was glad that he didn’t have to explain to her the sudden interest in men. He didn’t know if Bucky would have been so blasé about the affair, and he was incredibly grateful that he wasn’t in the room.

“Well, congratulations. I didn’t think it’d be possible, for you to be with someone who eclipsed even your popularity.”

Something must have shown on Steve’s face, because Gail reached out and clasped his hands between hers. “Steve, don’t look like that. I’m so happy for you. There were men, plenty of them, who fought alongside you, and many of them never lived to a time where they could be themselves. I’m so glad that, even after everything that brought you here, you found happiness like this.”

“He’s dying,” Steve said suddenly. Gail’s fingers squeezed his, and her gaze was struck by pity. From anyone else, it’d spark anger and shame, but not from her. Never from her.

“I’m sorry. I heard the press conference, about him being in the hospital.”

Steve shook his head. “It’s not just that. Even…even if—when he wakes up. He has a tumor. In his brain. They can’t operate on it.”

Gail looked at him then, and her face softened. “I’m so sorry, Steve. To have that sprung on you, after just getting married—”

“I knew,” he admitted. “He told me, back when we first met.”

That changed something. Gail nodded slowly, uncomprehending, Steve thought. “I see.”

Did _that_ surprise her? Steve never had a handle on what Gail or Bucky thought about the Ultimates. They were quick to shush the grandchildren when they asked Steve about kicking the Hulk in the balls, or whether Thor really did shoot lightning from his hammer. He twisted his fingers around each other, strangely nervous, as he asked.

“Which part do you think I should be surprised at?”

“That…that I married someone who’s going to be gone, soon.” It was the first time he’d said it out loud, Steve thought, and it was a huge weight off his shoulders. It made him feel light-headed, and he wiped at his eyes.

“Now, surprised isn't the term for it. But, if you're asking—no, I'm not. You were never the most practical person I met.” She smiled, her gaze gone distant. “When we were teenagers, I remember you were the most romantic of any boy in town.”

It was like a pinprick against his chest, and he hated feeling like this, small and pitiable. His throat burned, and he resisted the urge to wipe at his eyes again. “Just because I was skinny and needed a cane to walk properly didn’t mean that—”

“Not like that. Oh, Steve. I meant how surely you believed in love and what it could do, and how much you wanted it. You didn't let it embarrass you, no matter how badly you wanted to be part of the man’s club. That’s what drew me to you, back then. So, no, it doesn’t surprise me that your idealistic, romantic heart won out over everything else. Logic, practicality, whatever you want to call it.”

Steve was tired of logic and practicality. He wanted to believe in a world where teammates meant a bond forged in blood and Ultimates fought more than themselves. He wanted to believe in the same future Tony saw.

“It doesn't feel like a win, sometimes,” Steve admitted.

The sunlight was blocked for a moment before Gail took a seat closer beside him. “It doesn't. I know it's not the same, but don't forget that my husband also has lung cancer.”

Steve closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.” It was silly to say that he’d forgotten, but whenever Steve saw him, Bucky was so full of life, you’d never even think he was sick. A part of him knew, it must have been a show, that Steve was company and company meant liveliness. He thought of Tony, on the mornings where he was so tired, he’d roll over and pin Steve down using a limp arm. That and his disgruntled grunt when Steve tried to move was enough strength to keep Steve still.

Gail nodded. “It’s a loss for you too, isn’t it?”

“Bucky’s my best friend,” Steve said. “But, you’ve been with him for over sixty years. You have grandchildren.”

He meant it to comfort, but he heard the resentment in his own voice, and Gail hadn’t missed it. That they’d still been able to be together for so long. More than twice his own lifetime, with someone they loved. The thought of him and Tony being so lucky was a distant dream.

Steve wondered if God tired of him, always asking him why things had to be this way. Maybe that was the way He had intended. That Steve was only meant to be loyal to the cause.

“You’re right. I’ve been blessed with him, no matter what brought us together,” Gail said, and Steve thought that was the first time she even alluded to the end of the war. “But he’s been my partner for so long, I’m not sure what I’ll do when he’s gone. I've had to live with the idea, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready. But when you allow someone into your life like that, it’s a choice you make knowing that what your life together will be worth it, soldier or civilian.”

What was there to say to that? Gail had always been kind, and beautiful, but this wasn’t like the Gail he knew to be so mature. Before this point, Steve hadn't given thought to whether the changes in her were for the better. He should have known they always were.

“Would you have rather,” Steve began, “if you didn’t know about the cancer. Would that have been better?”

“Don’t think about what-ifs, dear. Those hurt too much, and Lord knows you’ve dealt with enough hurt already.” She sighed. “With Bucky, I’ve prepared for it for a long time. I know it’s coming. But that doesn’t mean that whatever happens now won’t have me being true to myself.”

“I don’t know if I can. I don't know what I’ll do without him,” Steve admitted. It was a stupid thing to say, to the woman who’d lived most of her life with her best friend, when it'd only been a few months for Steve. Steve was happy, comfortable, even. He was also —

“I’m scared,” he said. He didn't think he could say that again, even if he wanted to. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“It’s not about thinking about it. You deserve to be happy.”

“Even if it’s—”

“Don’t give me that about how it won’t last. You deserve to be happy, at this moment. Heaven knows, I’d give so much to have you be happy, Steve.”

“I am happy.” How could he say otherwise? He was happy with Tony's easy, silly delight. He was happy with the casual intimacy, how Steve's skin, like stone to the rest of the world, could be a comfort to Tony. He was happy with how the simplest and most complex of things were fascinating to Tony, and that was just what made Steve perfect, Tony would say, even when Steve didn't believe him.

Gail's smile was brilliant. “I'm glad. And no matter how long it lasts, remember that. I know that Bucky worries about me. It hurts, when he tries to talk about my future, or even tries to pull away. I can’t stop him from feeling things, or wanting to do something, any more than I can with myself. I can make him feel supported, and know that he's loved, no matter what he thinks he's doing to me by my choosing to stay. It doesn't even compare to what he's brought into my life.”

Even if Tony never woke up…then Steve going to the Tower on that first night and picking him up off his bathroom floor would still be one of the best things that ever happened to him. No, one of the best things he’d ever done.

“We're a unit. That’s what you wanted, when you proposed to him, isn’t it?”

To have Tony at his side, but to be by Tony’s side, as well. To be there, to help Tony take things head on. That was what he was good for, after all, the first line of offense, the leader of the charge. Together, they could face anything.

When he'd proposed to Tony, It’d been a way to tell Tony that he wasn’t alone. And even if they didn't make it through, it was worth it. Tony had known that from the beginning, when he’d donned the Iron Man armor for the first time.

Steve nodded. He put his face in his hands, and nodded again, feeling the tears spread across his palms and fall between his fingers.

* * *

 

**Then:**

Steve looked at his ring, heart pounding, and slipped it onto his finger, before pulling his gloves on and rushing downstairs.

“Should you be out on the field?” Steve asked Tony, heading him off at the entrance to his lab. The Ultimates alert had been pulled. It was the first time they'd seen each other eye-to-eye in the past two days.

“Fuck off,” Tony said, as Stark employees began to stream into the room, ready to help him into the armor, like he knew he could cut off any conversation with other people in the room. Steve steeled his jaw, turning away and adjusting his own helmet as he prepared for battle.

“What's the situation, Thor?” he asked into his comm.

“Some Jotun beasts have found their way into this realm. My brother has called upon us for aid.”

“We’re helping Loki?”

“Ah, no. I wouldn’t help Loki if I didn’t have a death wish,” Thor said.

“You have another brother?” Steve said sharply.

“My dear brother Baldr is a noble man. I trust his word if he says that this would bring harm to Midgard.”

“Well, time to be heroes and get our due with the adoring public,” Clint said.

“After Brucie?” Tony scoffed. “We’ll be lucky if they don’t have our heads on a pike for letting another one of our team free.”

“Well, let’s get mad at Thor first, before letting others get mad at us,” Jan snapped. “Meet at the coordinates.”

“Mad at Thor? Me?” Tony laughed, and that was right, Tony never minded anything Thor did. It might have been the alienness of him, even when they were convinced he was just a nutcase, like he was on a different plane of existence where the same emotions didn’t apply. Not unlike Steve, who Tony had no issue arguing with, butting heads with, and injecting that flat edge into his voice when he was past anger.

It was that note in Tony's voice that Steve couldn't shake off, as his shield sliced through a giant's arm. Even a hide that could withstand the finest smithery Asgard could offer didn't hold up against vibranium, and Steve smeared the handle against his pants, wiping off as much blood as he could.

Steve stopped in his tracks, lifting his head to better hear. Another muffled sob came, and he rushed toward the source of the sound.

The young girl was curled up next to the car, holding onto a backpack and weeping inconsolably.

“Damn it,” Steve muttered, before the street shook with footsteps. He looked behind him, watching another ogre take a crack at a tree, before its head turned toward them.

“I need backup!” he shouted into the comm. Steve covered the girl's head with the shield, prying her fingers loose so she could grip the edge of it.

“Stay here,” he said firmly, and got a whimper in answer.

Steve bounded quickly, so that when the ogre could track him with his eyes, he already had it in a headlock. It roared, scrabbling at him with thick, jagged nails. Steve squeezed tighter, sending kick after kick into its spine. After a roar, something smacked against the side of his head, sending him reeling. He whipped his head around before he was grabbed by the scruff of the neck, swung around so the ogre could look down at him with its nauseating breath. Steve grit his teeth and blinked the sun out of his eyes. But no, the sun _was_ getting bigger, and Steve lifted his forearm, bracing for impact.

The ogre howled, stumbling forward, and Steve fell to the ground, feeling his shoulder give out when he smashed into the street.

There was a loud crash, and Steve followed his gut instinct. He rolled, his shoulder sending shocks of pain through his arm with each jolt against the concrete. He curled into a ball as the rubble fell from the sky, and he hoped that girl was holding onto that shield for dear life.

The scream that ripped through the comm stopped the world in its tracks.

A bright light lit up the entire street, even in the daylight, and the back of Steve's neck burned at the heat of the beam. When the rumbling was gone, the wailing was even louder. Steve shot up, looking at the collapsed building.

“Was that—Iron Man, come in!”

“I think he used his energy source in—in his chest.” Even Thor had lost his speech pattern, as he flew in, picking the girl up in his arms.

Steve's nails couldn’t get the grip they needed to push away the gravel, and he ripped his gloves off, digging even deeper. The GPS coordinates blinked uselessly on his communicator, zeroed in on this spot. It felt like an eternity until he hit metal instead of rubble.

The armor was unresponsive, and Steve clicked the latches on the side of his helmet, revealing an unconscious Tony, green flight gel running down the side of his head. Steve patted his face, his heart racing, desperate for any response.

Tony's cheeks were covered in blood, and Steve jerked back before he realized the blood came from his own fingertips. His fingernails had been ripped off.

“Iron Man,” and Steve couldn't recognize his own voice, bordering on hysteria. “Tony!”

 

* * *

 

 

**Now**

The first time Tony woke up, truly woke up, Steve only knew because he’d memorized every pattern of Tony’s. Tony shifted, and his breathing became more regular, and Steve stilled, waiting for him to open his eyes. A few moments later, Tony slipped back to sleep, and for the first time in what seemed like ages, Steve could take a full breath.

The next time Steve woke up was to someone stroking his hair. He jolted upright.

“Tony.” Steve’s head dropped down, and he took hold of Tony’s hand, letting it droop between his fingers.

Tony's eyes were sharp and curious. “So”—his voice was hoarse—“that really was you, this whole time, wasn't it? Talking to me?”

Steve smiled at him. “For better or worse, right?”

“We didn’t make vows—”

“I can’t imagine it gets much worse than this,” said Steve, leaning forward to swiftly kiss the knuckles of Tony's fingers.

“You woke up all alone, sixty years in the future and became the star of a B-rated sci-fi flick.” Tony squeezed Steve's fingers. “I should be thankful your imagination is still so limited.”

Steve didn’t mind. Tony went over a dozen end-of-the-world scenarios while brushing his teeth, like he was obligated to stop them all before succumbing to his cancer. Steve had been privy to some of them, that ran like clockwork in Tony’s head, and still he couldn’t think of anything worse than what Tony had put him through the past week.

“How are you even real?” Tony muttered, sighing as Steve stroked his thumbs over the back of his hand.

Steve didn't answer. He would have a lot of answers for Tony, soon, later.

For now, he wanted to live for this second. He pressed his mouth to the pads of Tony’s fingers, before leaning down and resting Tony's hand on his forehead, stroking his palm with his thumbs.

“Thank you,” he said. For waking up, for being Tony, for becoming a home in this strange, foreign world, each thought punctuated by another kiss to the tips of Tony's fingers.

Every kiss, every second. Tony let him do it, and what a privilege, for Tony Stark to deem you worthy of his attention. With Tony, every moment was the present. It was an idea Steve could get used to.

 


End file.
